It’s just a laminated bookmark, a 2-inch-by-6-inch piece of a file folder. On one side, there’s an ink drawing of me, as seen through the eyes of a 7-year-old. The very diplomatic stick figure version of me is seated at a table with the bookmark’s creator. Between us is a book. On the other side, he wrote “Thank you!”

This bookmark was my reward for my seven months as a volunteer reader with Lincoln’s Start Making a Reader Today program for children in grades K-3.

I was looking forward to starting as a reader again in the fall, but Corvallis School District officials announced that Lincoln and Garfield discontinued the program, citing a lack of classroom space. Wilson officials considered starting a SMART program there, but that idea came to nothing. Mountain View now is the only school in Corvallis’ with a SMART program.

On April 4, SMART’s fortunes worsened. Officials in SMART’s Portland headquarters announced that the state’s 198 coordinators no longer would be paid for working the 15 hours a week they spent scheduling the volunteers who read to children at 280 Oregon schools. The $8 to $11 an hour that the coordinators were paid added up to about $1 million of SMART’s $4 million annual budget.

Response to the news on our online forums ranged from helpful to churlish and uninformed. A few wondered why “real” volunteers would have a problem increasing their service from one hour a week to 15. Surely their families, bosses and children wouldn’t mind ...

And how hard could it be, coordinating volunteers to read for two half-hour sessions to 60 students a week? It’s easy — until you try. Or someone gets sick or has to work overtime or has a flat tire.

One reader suggested that it’s a good thing that tax dollars weren’t being spent on coordinators’ salaries. Never mind the money came not from taxes but from foundations and donations, which have slowed due to harsh economic conditions.

It’s always easier to volunteer someone else, but it’s unfair and unwise. If all goes well, I’ll be back as a SMART volunteer this fall. I can’t afford to donate 15 hours a week. I’m neither rich nor retired. But I can do what I can do. I only hope it will be enough to restore a program whose value is beyond price.

Theresa Novak is the city editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times.